ashford studios tour

• Travel Guides

7 Vikings Filming Locations In Ireland To Relive The Magic

Hop on to see some wonderful Viking filming Locations In Ireland and plan a trip soon.

The hit Vikings TV series from the History Channel has been enthralled audiences worldwide since its release in 2013. This historical drama with a total of six seasons was created by Michael Hirst, an English screenwriter and producer. It follows the adventures of Ragnar Lodbrok, a legendary 9th-century Viking, and later his family, and is based equally on fact and fiction. The series was so popular that it earned many nominations and awards.  It got praised globally not just for the riveting plot and special visual effects but also for its outstanding cinematography and beautiful Vikings filming locations.

If you have seen the series, the mesmerizing landscapes from this spectacular show must have made you wonder where was Vikings filmed. Majority of the show is set in England, Denmark, and other parts of Northern Europe, though there are also scenes set around the Mediterranean. However, a lot of ‘Vikings’ filming locations are actually in Ireland. In fact, many locations can be found just south of Dublin in Wicklow County. This area is known for its lush Nordic-looking landscapes and is filled with mountains, glacial lakes, and forests. 

Book Now: City of Vikings Historical Walking Tour

Table of Contents

Famous Vikings Filming Locations To Visit

Come let’s take you through the stunning mountains, lakes, rivers, beaches, waterfalls and countryside that will transport you to the world of the Vikings.

1. Lough Tay, County Wicklow – Kattegat

Lough Tay in County Wicklow is one of the main filming locations for the settlement of Kattegat. This is where Ragnar Lothbrok and his family resided in the show. Also known as “Guinness Lake” (as it’s owned by the Guinness family) the fjord-style mountains of Wicklow County provide the perfect backdrop for the fictional village. Snow and other Scandinavian elements to the scene were often digitally edited and added to make it apt for the series. Unfortunately, the Loch itself lies on private land and you can’t get up close. The set of Kattegat village was located right near the shore before it was moved to Ashford Studios in Ballyhenry.

Best Time To Visit: Summer months of June, July and August

2. Blessington Lakes, County Wicklow

Many scenes featuring Ragnar and the other Viking Norsemen exploring the vast seas on longships are also filmed on the Blessington Lakes (especially during the third season). These lakes cover 500 acres in the majestic Wicklow Mountains and were only formed over 50 years ago. This is where Ireland’s largest man-made reservoir (Pulaphuca Reservoir) from where electricity and water is supplied to many parts of Dublin. Just remember to keep away from the water as swimming is prohibited in Blessington lakes because of the many hidden dangers. Several scenes were also filmed at the nearby Lough Dan. 

Best Time To Visit: June to late August

3. Luggula Estate, County Wicklow

Lough Tay is situated on the Luggala Estate, which is owned by the Guinness family. The Estate and its mountains also feature heavily in Vikings as the rugged Scandinavian landscape surrounding Kattegat. Luggula Estate, also known as “Fancy Mountain” is rightly famous for its breathtaking beauty and dramatic landscapes. As the estate is owned by the Guinness family, ask your tour operator to take permission if you wish to see it from close proximity.

Best Time To Visit: March through October

4. Powerscourt Waterfall, County Wicklow

Another filming location in County Wicklow was at Powerscourt. This gorgeous estate and its gardens cover 47 acres and date back to the 13th century. The 400-foot-high Powerscourt Waterfall was used in the scene where the audience is first introduced to Aslaug, the future wife of Ragnar. This waterfall is not just a popular attraction for people who loves to connect with nature but also one of the highest waterfalls in Ireland.

Best Time To Visit: Autumn months

5. Nuns Beach, County Kerry

Nuns Beach in County Kerry was used to film scenes set in medieval Northumbria. Located along the Wild Atlantic Way, Nuns Beach lies just beneath an old convent and gets its name from the nuns who used to bathe there. The beach is only accessible by boat or by a very steep path set on the side of the cliffs surrounding it. Just around the corner is an area called the Nine Daughters, which is associated with a fascinating legend. The story goes that the 9 daughters of the local Village Chief fell in love with Viking invaders and planned to run away with them. But, their father caught them and threw both his daughters and the Vikings into the sea, where they drowned.

Best Time To Visit: January, March and September

6. River Boyne, County Meath

In Season 4 of the show, the Vikings sail down the Seine River to take Paris. However, this was actually filmed on the Boyne River in County Meath, with the city of Paris being added in later with CGI. The Boyne River was picked for filming as it runs through some of the most beautiful countryside in Ireland. The River Boyne runs through many counties but much of the Viking scenes were filmed along the walls of nearby Slane Castle. 

Best Time To Visit: April to July

7. Ashford Studios, County Wicklow

Finally, a lot of the show’s magic happens at Ashford Studios as most part of the series was shot in this studio. Also located in County Wicklow, this campus has been the show’s base since 2013. This is because of the 30km of shore that has forest, lakes and mountains which are perfect scenic locations for outdoor scenes. Many blockbuster movies have set up their sets at Wicklow and hence this place came to be known as ‘The Hollywood of Europe’. For indoor scenes, Ashford Studios had set up detailed and immersive sets to create convincing and captivating representation of Kattegat. This location has greatly contributed to the making of the series. 

Best Time To Visit: late spring and early autumn

Also Read:  25 Outlander Filming Locations Fans Must Visit In Real Life

Other ‘Vikings ‘ Filming Locations To Visit

• Vik Beach and Skógafoss Waterfall in Iceland‘s South Coast, which we see in Season 5 when boat-builder Flóki (who is loosely based on the real Viking Flóki Vilgerðarson, who according to the Icelandic sagas was the first Norseman to set foot on Iceland) sets out on his own and discovers the land, which he names “The Land of the Gods”;
• Parts of the Sahara Desert near Erfoud and Errachidia in Morocco, when in season 5, Ragnar’s eldest son Björn Ironside travels to the Mediterranean and to Sicily (because modern-day Sicily looks nothing like it did in medieval times). Here the fortress of the Byzantine commander was filmed at the Atlas Film Studios in Ouarzazate. The same fortress has previously been used in several other films, including Kingdom of Heaven (2005), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Gladiator (2000) and The Mummy (1999). 

Last but not the least, don’t miss to visit the Dublinia Viking Festival and Museum in Ireland. It is at the Dublinia Viking Festival where one can see what life was like aboard a Viking warship. Different Viking houses, the weapons they used and the clothes exhibited here are sure to take one back in time. The museum too has a good collection of artifacts that shows the blend between the old and new Dublin. 

Book Now: 5 Days Shetland Viking Fire Festival Experience

Final Thoughts

These remarkable Vikings shooting locations has been instrumental in creating an immersive depiction of the Viking age that led to the huge success of the series. Must say, the beautiful landscapes of Iceland have left an indelible mark in the hearts of its audience forever. Are there any Vikings filming locations that we’ve missed? If so, be sure to share them in the comments below.

Suggested Reads: Traditional Irish Dishes You Need To Try On Your Next Trip To Ireland!

Some FAQs On Vikings Filming Locations

During the first two seasons the entire town of Kattegat was the Vikings filming locations. From the filming of the third season the shooting was moved to Ashford Studios in Ireland to make it easy for the cast and crew to get to the location. The good news for Vikings fans is that, both the real Kattegat Vikings location and the manmade location at Ashford Studios are open for people to visit.

The stunning Nuns beach in the west Coast of Ireland is where the battle scene was shot, the black sand beaches near Vík is where the Land of the Gods that Flóki was shot in season 5 and Silverstrand beach in the south of Wicklow are beaches where the Vikings series was filmed. 

Although the majority of the series was filmed in Ireland, some breathtaking serene landscapes in Norway were also used to film Vikings.  The most significant Norwegian filming location was the village of Avaldsnes in Karmøy as it offered a wealth of stunning landscapes. Apart from these two locations, Denmark, Sweden, distant lands like England, France, and even the Mediterranean’s geographical area was explored over the course of its six seasons.

The Golden land in Vikings discovered by Ubbe and the settlers is believed to be in North America. The land is called ‘Golden Land’ as the land is quite fertile with forest, fruits, water and animals.

The longboat scenes with mountains, are shot on location in Nærøyfjorden in Norway, not Blessington Lakes. Same with the mountain fjord scenes as seen from Kattegat.

Some scenes involving longboats were indeed shot on location in Nærøyfjorden, but many others were filmed in Ireland on Blessington Lake (you can see an article covering it here ), and as this article focuses primarily on the show’s filming locations in Ireland, Blessington Lakes is the location we have chosen to include.

I have been going through your blog for quite a while now and i seriously love the updates you give.

Thank you for this beautiful article and specific location. Indeed Ireland an Norway are gorgeous.

LEAVE A REPLY Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Uncover the Epic Filming Locations in Ireland

Journey through the lens of Vikings in Ireland! Discover the enchanting filming locations that brought the epic saga to life.

ON SITE LOCATIONS

Ashford Studios is situated in a parkland setting covering 550 acres with plenty of location shooting opportunity to suit. 

NEARBY LOCATIONS

Located on the East coast of Ireland, with the worlds best beaches on our doorstep and the rolling Wicklow mountains to the West.

‘Vikings: Valhalla’ – Shooting Locations

Wicklow: Land of ‘The Vikings’ & ‘Vikings: Valhalla’

The Viking Series premiered on March 3, 2013 on the History Channel and ran for a total of six seasons with broadcasting throughout the world!  The series was mostly shot in County Wicklow at the Ashford Studios.  With 30km of shores along the Irish Seas, the many lakes and mountains and Ireland’s largest forest area, Wicklow’s landscape offered the ideal diversity of locations to fit the many outdoor scenes.  The

Wicklow was named ‘The Hollywood of Europe’ by Jane Seymour in 2000, and has been the set of many blockbuster movies for many decades.  Movies shot here include Excalibur, Braveheart, P.S. I Love You, Reign of Fire, Into Bad Lands, the Tudors, The Count of Monte Christo, Far & Away and many more.

Vikings: Valhalla series released in February 2022 on Netflix is a sequel of the original Vikings series.  Vikings: Valhalla was also shot in Wicklow at Ashford Studios.

See below some of the locations that have been used during the filming of both series:

Lough Tay or the Guinness Lake:

It’s on the shore of the famous lough Tay that the set of the viking settlement of Kattegat is regularly set up.  The Lake can be best viewed from the Military Road above from which you can enjoy its unique shape resembling a pint of the famous Irish Beer.  The estate at Luggala used to belong the Guinness Family, with its latest host, Garech de Brún made this place famous worldwide welcoming prestigious guests such as Mick Jaeger or Michael Jackson.

Blessington Lakes

The Pulaphuca Reservoir is Ireland’s largest man-made reservoir.  The dam generates electricity while the water supplies part of Dublin.  Several boat scenes were shot there.

Avoca Mines

The Avoca Mines and its unique landscape was the set of many battles!

Wicklow Coast

Over the years of shooting, spotting Vikings’ Long ships along the Wicklow Coast was not unusual especially between the Black Castle in Wicklow Town and Brittas Bay .

Powerscourt Waterfall

With a height of 121 metres (397 ft)Powerscourt Waterfall is one of the highest in Ireland and has featured in many movies.  Powerscourt Waterfall is a very popular attraction for families wishing to spend the day reconnecting with nature.

Related posts

Top Destinations to Meet Santa in Wicklow

Christmas Lights in Wicklow

Lisa & Ryan’s Wicklow Passport Ambassador Journey!

Privacy overview.

• Twitter - RTS Futures
• Facebook - RTS Futures
• What's On & Book
• News & Features
• Television Magazine
• Education & Training
• RTS in my area
• RTS Futures
• Steve Hewlett Memorial Fund
• RTS Patrons
• Media Centre

You are here

Tour of ashford studios.

The ROI Centre plan to have a tour of the Ashford Studios in the coming weeks.

We will inform members as soon as a date is  agreed.

Terms & Conditions

• Skills Opportunities

Ashford Studios

• Filming in Ireland

Facilities  Three sound stages on 500 acres of pristine rural back lot.

Location  26 miles from Dublin city centre and 50 minutes from Dublin airport.

• Gasworks Stage: 30,000 sq. ft.
• Box Stage: 14,500 sq. ft.
• Christmas Tree Stage: 12,500 sq. ft.

In Development

Phase 1 (Existing) 73,000 sq. ft. of stage space 87,000 sq. ft. of service space 9 acre backlot

Phase 2 170,000 sq. ft. of stage space 526,000 sq. ft. of support space

Contact: www.as hfordstudios.com Email:  [email protected]

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Irish Studios Have a Moment in Clover

By John Anderson

• July 27, 2012

SOMETIMES it’s difficult getting even the Irish to watch Irish cinema. But the whole world is watching Irish-made television.

“The Tudors,” “The Borgias,” “Camelot,” “Love/Hate,” “Titanic: Blood and Steel,” “Raw,” “Ripper Street” and an assortment of BBC productions have been shot, are being shot or have their productions based in the Irish Republic. (Most of these have reached America already.) As economic uncertainty roils countries in the euro zone, deep cuts in government financing have affected the film and television industry in Spain , Portugal , the Netherlands and elsewhere. But not so here, where the combination of a weak euro and tax incentives have meant that small-screen work abounds.

At the brand-new Ashford Studios, 30 minutes south of this capital city, the groaning of saws and whining of drills echoed around Ragnar’s house, a rough-hewed Scandinavian-inspired assemblage of timber that will be the centerpiece of “ Vikings ,” the first scripted series being made for the History channel, as well as the first production for Ashford, in County Wicklow. Large as it is, Ragnar’s home doesn’t even dominate the room: the 30,000-square-foot main stage is a vast space competitive with London’s Pinewood Studios and is just part of this site that includes 300 acres that can provide rolling green fields or a rock quarry.

“Everyone we’d worked with had said, ‘Ireland would be terrific if you had bigger stages,’ ” said the veteran film producer Morgan O’Sullivan, a co-producer on “Braveheart” and “Angela’s Ashes,” among many other films. His companies Octagon and World 2000 are making “Vikings” in collaboration with History, MGM and Shaw Media in Canada. “And we do have a really nice facility called Ardmore Studios . This, Ashford, is sort of an add-on to Ardmore. So now it means that with the facilities in this country we can do a couple of productions at the same time, and a couple of large productions.”

Ardmore, owned by Paul McGuinness, U2’s manager, and the accountant Ossie Kilkenny, and also in County Wicklow, is not as healthy as it might be: it has not seen action since the Starz show “Camelot” ended last year, and its facilities are considered outdated. But despite a possible state takeover it is likely to continue a history stretching from “The Tudors” in 2010 back to “Shake Hands With the Devil” in 1959 with James Cagney.

When Ardmore and Ashford are added to a mix that includes the financial advantages of shooting in Ireland, it’s small wonder that Britain is eager to get its own television incentives in place and fight the outsourcing of its production. New incentives, to take effect in April, are seen as a direct response to Ireland’s TV boom.

“It’s very flattering,” Mr. O’Sullivan said, dryly. Among other projects that might have gone elsewhere, he said, was “Loving Miss Hatto,” a BBC television movie about the pianist at the heart of a notorious fraud in classical music in the 20th century. Mr. O’Sullivan’s partner, James Flynn, is producing that drama in Ireland.

“A lot of that kind of material could have been done in the U.K.,” Mr. O’Sullivan said. “And by the end of next year they’ll have an incentive.”

And when they do, said Derry O’Brien, the managing director of Network Ireland Television, smiling, “will that mean “Game of Thrones’ will get a double incentive?”

That series, an HBO hit, is the production of the moment. Shot largely in Northern Ireland, where filming for Season 3 has begun, “Game of Thrones” would quite likely have been made here, had the British government not delivered a special seven-figure tax incentive (which, it says, has meant approximately $66.7 million to the region’s economy). That, and the kind of room provided by Paint Hall, in Belfast, the cavernous space where the Titanic was painted, have kept Tyrion, Cersei and the other medieval mischief makers in Britain.

But the borders between countries, as well as between film and TV production, are rather porous here. For instance, the Irish Film Board and Northern Ireland Screen together helped finance “Game of Thrones.”

The agencies can team up when a project spends a certain percentage of money in each territory, Mr. O’Brien said. “For example, it would be a film that is primarily shot in Northern Ireland but would be postproduced in Dublin, or the sound work could be done here.”

In the meantime it’s Ashford that’s home to “Vikings.” Behind the scenes the team includes Michael Hirst (“Elizabeth,” “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”), who wrote all 38 episodes of “The Tudors,” and the costume designer Joan Bergin, a multiple Emmy winner for that show. She said she was brought onto “Vikings” under false pretenses.

“My big interest is in when they go to Byzantium,” she said of the Vikings, played in part by the Australian actor Travis Fimmell and the Irishman Gabriel Byrne. “I went to an exhibition at the Met a few months ago, and I had this vision of creating these glorious costumes, so I said, ‘I’ll do it.’ Then I found out they don’t get there till Season 2.”

Presuming there is a Season 2, “Vikings” will thus continue to aid the cause of employment in Ireland. “Our primary focus is to support Irish talent in making audio and visual works” whether it’s Irish co-productions or not, said James Hickey, chief executive of the Irish Film Board, at the Galway Film Fleadh.

An undertaking like “Vikings” hires 300 to 400 workers, Mr. O’Sullivan said. “So if you have three or four shows on at a time, that’s significant employment. And we’re just one production company.”

Another, headquartered in a Georgian town house along the Grand Canal here, is Element Pictures, which, like similar Irish companies, survives through diversity. It is involved in producing, co-producing, distributing, even showing films (via the city’s Light House Cinema).

Given the Irish economy and the instability within the euro zone, nothing’s a sure thing here. The filmmaker Lenny Abrahamson, whose latest project, “What Richard Did,” was produced through Element, said, “I think lots of us are like the guy falling through the air, having stepped off the ledge of a tall building, thinking, ‘So far, so good’ as he passes floor after floor.”

But as Element’s co-director, Ed Guiney, noted, the country is rather enlightened about the arts. Its president, Michael D. Higgins, is a former arts minister; he’s also a poet.

“The creative industries play very well right now in Ireland,” Mr. Guiney said. “We’re clearly not very good at property development, and clearly not very good at banking. But you could argue we’re not bad at art and theater and music and possibly film. We’re good at that stuff, so we should be nurturing that part of our talent base.”

An article last Sunday about the increase in television shows being filmed in Ireland misstated the name of the movie house in Dublin where the production company Element Pictures sometimes shows movies. It is Light House Cinema, not Limelight.

When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at [email protected] . Learn more

Arts and Culture Across Europe

Monet and Turner found something sublime in the polluted 19th-century city — and maybe something darker, too .

The Glyndebourne Festival, a privately funded British opera festival that receives little state support, has been mostly immune from recent convulsions of the opera industry in Britain .

Errollyn Wallen, a Belize-born artist who has been named master of music by King Charles, discusses music as an escape, confronting racism and living by the sea .

London’s fall theater season promises star vehicles alongside robust reimaginings of the classics and even a notable song or two. Here are some recommendations for those who want to get the most from the city’s varied theater scene .

Atri Banerjee, a theater director, has channeled his own experiences into a new production  of John Osborne’s groundbreaking 1956 work “Look Back in Anger.”